FUNDERS

Micro Budget Features & Contemporary Distribution Landscape

By Jeffrey Winter

At some point in our formative childhood years, we learn that “progress” is the process of getting “bigger and better.” ......Nowadays, if your average indie filmmaker says they spent $1 million on their film, people look at them like they are utterly decadent and out-of-touch (unless they have movie stars in their film). There are numerous factors that have contributed to this of course, including… 1) the democratization of digital filmmaking technology and the explosion in the number of independent films being made as a result; 2) the radical fracturing of the film consumption habits of the public given their thousands of channels and ubiquitous access to on-demand content; and 3) the crash of 2008 and the predominantly backsliding global (especially US and European) economy that offers us no reason to think that things will get any better any time soon.

And so, we have entered the era of the Micro-Budget film, which Microfilmmaker Magazine defines as a “less than a 30,000 budget,” and which they claim amounts to 80 – 90% of all independent films today (http://bit.ly/o1oD5h). For the purposes of framing this discussion, I am going to be a bit more generous as to what we can call “Micro-Budget” ….I’ll go to approximately $100,000 for sake of argument. (Note: prior to 2008, I was preaching to filmmakers that $250,000 was still micro-budget, but my how things have changed). Why $100,000 today you ask? Because at $100,000 or less, one can easily wrap one’s brain around how a no-stars indie film can achieve financial recoupment by simply plumbing the basic mechanics of contemporary film distribution, from film festivals straight through to digital distribution and all the steps in-between. READ MORE.